Check, Please?

Chapter 16

It wasn’t often that I would wake up in an empty bed and notice that it was empty.  I was so used to banging a guy at his place and then returning to my own bed where I would sleep alone.  There was something so personal about sleep to me that I found it hard to share with anyone… unless, of course, it was Harry.  For about a year after my mother died, I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night screaming my head off and sweating like I had just run a marathon because of bad dreams, but there was not a time that I woke up from a bad dream and Harry wasn’t there.  He was all I saw when I snapped back into my life from a dream and he would hold me and shush me and rock me until I fell back into a peaceful sleep.  But even when I fell asleep with Harry, we often didn’t wake up together.  I guess, for a while, I scared him.  He wanted to be there to help me wake up from the dreams, but he didn’t want to be there when I was actually going through a dream.  It never bothered me though. 

Until today.

I opened my eyes and tried to listen to see if Harry was still laying behind me.  I heard no breathing and felt no warmth from his body.  Disappointed and confused, I flipped over just to be sure he wasn’t there – which he wasn’t.  I sat up and peered across the hallway into his room.  His sheets were thrown off of his bed from the night before where he rushed into my room and cuddled up with me.  He wasn’t in his bed.  I listened and I waited to see if I could hear him walking around in his room or in the bathroom beside my room.  I didn’t hear anything.  Was it all just a dream?  Maybe Louis was pounding into me so hard the night before that I passed out and just dreamed about the rest.  I imagined Harry’s face as Louis walked to the front door of the apartment, carrying me in his arms.

“What happened??” Harry would ask.

“Oh,” Louis would answer nonchalantly as he would hand my limp body to Harry. “We got to fucking so hard that she passed out.”

A crashing pot interrupted my thoughts. I jumped out of the bed quickly and ran to the kitchen. “Harry?”

“Shit,” Harry swore, jumping as I scared him.  He dropped a skillet that he had in his hand, full of runny pancake batter.  I plugged my ears and turned away as the pot clanged against the floor and batter splattered all over the cabinets.  Harry clutched his chest as he caught his breath and glowered at the mess on the floor.

“Scotty, you-“

“Harry!” I screamed and pointed to the stove where our dish towel was just catching on fire.  Harry accidentally held it over the open flame and instinctively dropped the burning towel as it lit up.  I dove toward the fire and pinched the small part of the towel that hadn’t been set ablaze yet, quickly tossing it into the sink and twisting on the faucet.  The cool water extinguished the fire immediately.  I coughed and waved my hand in front of my face as smoke flew up into the air around us. 

“Shit, Scotlan, I was just…” Harry looked around at the mess in the kitchen.  Pancake batter was everywhere.  I saw a plate of burned muffins near the trash can.  Under the charred towel in the sink were multiple cracked egg shells. “I thought it might be nice for breakfast in bed.  But not cereal because I know you kinda hate cereal… most of the time…”  Harry let his hands fall to his sides and his shoulders sagged.  I couldn’t help but laugh when I looked at him.  I couldn’t remember another time where I had seen him so upset over something silly like breakfast.  As I laughed, the red, flustered color in his face deepened and he stared me down.

“Harrrrold!” I giggled, walking over splotches of batter on the floor and falling into his chest when I lost my balance.  I giggled more as I used my thumb to wipe pancake off of his nose and chin.  Harry pouted again, but a little more playfully this time.  When he finally gave in a cracked a smile, I wrapped my arms around his stomach and kissed the part of his chest revealed by his white (and pancake splattered) v-neck tee.